Xiamen Airlines, China's fourth largest domestic airline, aims to surpass 20m pax in 2013

Privately-owned carrier Xiamen Airlines has regained its position as China's fourth largest airline after a drop in capacity in 2H2012 and early 2013 when measured on available domestic and seat capacity and frequency. This places Xiamen as the world's 27th largest airline by seat capacity - larger than perhaps better-known carriers including KLM, Korean Air and Cathay Pacific. While those carriers eclipse Xiamen when weighing available seat kilometres, Xiamen as the 51st largest on ASKs is still larger than Air New Zealand, Finnair or Vueling.

This strong domestic carrier - 94% of seat capacity is within mainland China - will accelerate growth of its small international footprint by adding services around Southeast Asia following its ascension to SkyTeam in late 2012. But the domestic Chinese market remains its focus, and Xiamen will use many of the 15 737-800s it is receiving this year to grow its presence around its namesake home of Xiamen. Despite the name connection, Xiamen Airlines has more capacity outside of Xiamen than it does to or from the city. In 2013 Xiamen Airlines aims to break the 20 million threshold for annual passengers carrier, and also carry over 200,000 tons of cargo and mail.